EVANGELINE DOWNS
by Micah Ballard
Ugly Duckling Press (www.uglyducklingpresse.org)
2006, 22 pages

Micah Ballard has a thing for graveyards.

Not withstanding previous Ballard books (Chandeliers, inspired by the Metairie Cemetery and Bettina Coffin) his latest landscape of darkness goes by the name Evangeline Downs; nominally a racetrack/casino near Opelousas LA, in Ballard’s latest, and perhaps most impressive short collection, the games of chance are transformed into headstones or mausoleums of breathtaking artisanship for say Tupac Shakur (“9/13/96”) or the well preserved remains of criminals and/or murder victims discovered in Denmark throughout the 20th Century:

           This is the last
           of the jewelry box
           gone dry & on his head
           he wore a pointed

          skin cap, “a life for
          a life,” both the dead
          & sleeping.
          
        - “To The Bogs At Tollund & Grauballe”

It’s no accident that Ballard invokes these remains, preserved by a rare acidic water, reminiscent as they are of the bodies found under the recent acidic waters of New Orleans (“Vieux Carre.”)

Ballard is among the vanguard of new young lyricists who read in exclusive and intimate salons, publish beautifully crafted one shot press type chapbooks, and generally creating new urban art rituals. His poetry in particular is informed, but not ruled by, language poetry. A little more playful, as in “Afterlife,” (with his frequent collaborator Cedar Sigo) where one can review the prices for Easy Life Powder, Controlling Oil and Get Together Drops, but without losing the appreciation for starker savageries:

           Shots ring out
           & cut in the night rain

           strands of matted hair
           with white enamel
           do their work
           in the hour of Mars.

        - “Anonymous”

Evangeline Downs comes in a handy 5” x 7” pulp format, which is not to say like the pseudo-lurid come on of beat era novellas, but a more practical and easier fit in the palm of one’s hand than the average comic book, a perfect little vehicle of interior image expansion while commuting or waiting in a long line for the bureaucracy to address your concerns.

Make no mistake though: Evangeline Downs is a spectacular tribute to the dead and dying and the knowledge that little else unites the poet and the poetry reader.

-Paul Corman-Roberts